In his Opinion delivered on Thursday 31 January in Case C-55/18, Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) considers that under EU law, companies must introduce a system to measure effective daily working time for full-time workers who have not expressly agreed to work overtime and who are not mobile workers, merchant navy or the rail sector.
The Spanish trade union Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), supported by several other organisations, brought a class action before the Spanish Central Court against Deutsche Bank, seeking to have the latter set up a system to register the effective daily working time provided by its employees. Such a system, which the union considers mandatory under EU law, would, in its view, make it possible to check compliance with planned working hours and information on overtime.
On the other hand, in view of the case law of the Spanish Supreme Court, Deutsche Bank considers that this type of system is not mandatory.
The Spanish Central Court has therefore referred the matter to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling in order to shed light on the matter.
In his conclusions, Mr Pitruzzella considers that, in the light of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Directive 2003/88/EC on the organisation of working time, companies must introduce a system to measure actual daily working time for full-time workers who have not expressly agreed to work overtime, if these workers are not mobile, in the merchant navy or the rail sector.
The Advocate General considers that, in the absence of such a system, it is not possible to determine objectively the number of regular and overtime hours worked. Moreover, it is of the opinion that, in the absence of this type of system, workers' rights would be undermined with regard to judicial protection, since it would be difficult to establish the number of hours worked.
While Mr Pitruzzella considered the introduction of a working time measurement system to be mandatory, he pointed out that States were free to determine which method of accounting they considered most relevant. In addition, he adds that, if national law precludes this obligation, the national court must not apply the law of its State to the benefit of Union law, thus referring to the traditional case law of the obligation to interpret in conformity. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)